We do. We all hate your backpack.

We all want you to know that it’s a concert, not camping. Are you headed to a full day of classes right after the show? A sleepover perhaps?

What bonds people just as well as love, perhaps better? Hate. Shared hatred. Trés cozy.

I’m not talking that hate that inspires over-privileged selfish cowards to carry about tiki torches. I’m all for loving everyone first and then picking out individuals to hate based on their selfish behavior. Have you ever been at a show and your hatred of some rude fuck molesting you with his backpack & torturing all that they touch completely bonds all around the offender? You all find peace and bond over the fact that yes, said person is ruining everyone’s experience with their complete disregard of every other human being. Yes. We are at a rock show, but that does not mean we all have to be assholes. If you have a medical need to do so, please do, otherwise it’s completely silly. My mom always taught me manners will always take you further in life.

Who is this person that insists on bringing a backpack to every show?. The largest purse to a tiny venue? Are you that person that insists that piece of luggage the size of a small child needs to be with you in the front row?Are these people on their way to O’ Hare? And of course, they need to be right next to the stage with their small child strapped to them apathetically slamming into all around them. They turn to yell to their friends about that other friend who will be right there. I already know they also have a backpack and they are going to be standing directly on me in 5 minutes. Can’t wait. Cue, full turn around and (again) smashing me with the backpack, waving like a moron about 6 inches from my face to another moron to come stand upon me. Why yes, of course, he’s extra drunk and smelly, why wouldn’t he be? Good thing they can’t feel it all because they’ve brought a backpack large enough to hold a goddamn tent. I plot about the opening of the bag and all the belongings just tumbling…

To the backpackers:

I hate your backpack and now I hate you.

Everybody hates you and your backpack

I will bitch LOUDLY about you to you and roll my eyes with our shared sufferers of your existence.

I plot about opening that bag and all their… seriously wtf is in there? I do hope it’s precious. The bag empties it’s guts all over the floor and we the surrounding afflicted, mosh it all into oblivion. I dream of this moment. I swear it’s gonna happen one day. I’m gonna hit that right day and …yeah

AND SERIOUSLY WTF IS IN THERE?

Hell, this isn’t the 90’s, you have a phone which usually contains EVERYTHING. Keys you are allowed to have keys, wallet, and a phone. Fine, it’s a day-long festival but seriously how much shit do you want to carry around with you, ALL DAY? Do you think that bringing a huge backpack is going to enable you to hide all your illegal fun stuff? Good luck on that. I watched at Riot Fest as one guy shut down one of the lines for about 10 minutes while they insisted on ripping apart the very large, very packed bag and splaying its contents. If you bring a backpack you should make the decision that bringing all your worldly possessions with you should be left back where there’s room for that kind of lameness. Get to the back of the crowd where you belong. The pit is reserved for those who know how to exist without all of our belongings strapped to us.

Another festival season is damn near over. Color me crushed. And exhausted.Summer’s end always makes me sad but as much as I hate to admit it, hopeful. Don’t tell anyone I have a reputation to maintain. By the end of summer, I’m fucking tired. I need Fall and as much as I even further hate to admit- Winter. I need a goddamn break after all the lakeside bike rides, the sweaty street festivals, and the weekend-long treks back and forth to a festival. I need an excuse to lay in sweatpants and watch Netflix. It seems like an odd time to start a series about festivals and concerts perhaps. Sure, the concerts still rage on in the winter. Winter shows just have a different flavor. The wardrobe, footwear, and venues change but the music still goes on despite the notorious Chicago Winter. The cold weather brings a time of forced reflection. A time to reflect and not be distracted by the warm day and the sunny breeze. A time to reflect on all that I love about a good show, what I adore about squeezing through a crowd to stand with a bunch of strangers just so I can be that much closer to the band. Yes, I also will bitch about what I hate and life rules I just wish people would abide by. My rules. If people would just follow my rules but like in a no-rule loving way that just simply included some damn common decency as I see fit. Perhaps this entry will be the first in a series about me bitching about what I wish people knew at shows, perhaps some helpful advice. I’m not quite sure where this will all go honestly. Let me pretend to be wise and all knowing and use my concert knowledge for good not evil. Ok, some evil but good evil, fun evil.

Full disclosure: Here I am bitching about winter and festival season being over. I am heading out to Riot Festival this weekend to put a nice little finish to all my summer shows. I refuse to admit summers over until after Riot Fest.

It sometimes makes me ill to think that my desire to make clothes is actually involving myself in such a sick industry. The only job theoretically that I could do more harm to the environment is if I made a job transfer to a nice oil company. That’s insane. Last time I checked I just wanted to make clothes.

It’s my decision to make clothes that some deem too pricey. Wal-mart sells cheap shirts, why can’t I? Am I really just part of the problem anyways?

All I can promise is my clothes aren’t killing people. Every person, (besides me) is not suffering to make my clothes. Lives are not being cut short to work in unsafe working environment to sew my clothes. Nobody is handling chemicals that will slowly poison them. My clothes had no temporary home on these deplorable factory floors.

Because I made that choice. Don’t get me wrong as an independent designer I could never complete for price. Never. The choice to do the opposite isn’t exactly cheap.

I choose to not choose the cheapest way to make my clothes and not to make cheap clothes. I will not kill people to get a better price. No, really. You will not walk away will a $20 bag of clothes from me. I have no interest in that race.

And It’s not about every purchaser make being perfect and mindful. It’s about choosing wisely when and often as you can and all of us choosing a world we want to live in.

If you would like to educate yourself more on the subject I highly suggest “The True Cost” currently on Netflix . It’s a great watch to see how fashion and our purchasing choices affect the world we live in.

If you know me you know there are a handful of typical things I just don’t have much interest in. Weddings are one of them. I can’t tell you why but I just have no desire for it. Really. None. Sure- I’ll attend a wedding, toast away for the happy couple but just leave me out of it. I don’t care who else wants to be married just as long as no one makes me. Then IT happened. It all came about as a part of a miscommunication (which is the only way it really could of). There are very few people I would even consider tangling myself in holy matrimony with but low and behold– I made the commitment. The ultimate commitment.

The commitment to making a wedding dress.

Sorry mom, that other thing is just not happening.

However, there was probably a time during the construction of the dress when I would have rather wore the dress than kept sewing.

Had the bride not been someone I adored and knew that she was as chill and as unbridezilla as they come this would have never happened. It would have never even been a thought. My first step was still to try to talk her the fuck out of it.

I tried to tell her all the awful things. I told her you will think you will have no dress. It will be a really long process with countless decisions. I told her it would just be easier, cheaper, more sane to just go get a dress. I warned her it would only inch along and then when you she was just about to freak out…. BAM…DRESS.

She was still with me. What the fuck WAS she thinking?!?!

Sure, I can make a wedding dress. Months later, I’m on so little sleep that I’m an emotional, mental mess who hates my life. But it got done. Because I had no choice. And we both loved it. For me it’s pretty hard to still love anything after it’s done, especially when we have suffered so much together.

Fast forward to me winding down the back roads of Wisconsin toward Devil’s Lake, WI with a custom wedding dress in my backseat 2 hours before the ceremony starts. The bride was so chill she had me bring the dress with me the day of the ceremony. I know, I know -CRAZY. The dress was so perfectly her. It is undeniably like no other wedding dress. The groom and then the bride both thanked me at the reception. Blush. The bride was determined to make me cry and maybe I did. Everyone knew who made her dress, she made it very well known. And she also made sure I knew she climbed a tree in her dress. My entire evening was everyone telling me they loved her dress. It was not a bad way to spend an evening and besides dancing probably the only thing that kept me from falling asleep in my prosecco.

I can’t say I would agree to this ever again.

This dress was the perfect storm of bride, style and a good dash of ego and a finished with a well hidden cherry of crippling self doubt. I never had a full give-up moment. I usually have at least one fever dream of just leaving my life behind, changing my name to simply escape my project.